Limberakis Gerakaris

Limberakis Gerakaris Bey (1644-) was a Maniot pirate in the service of the Ottoman Empire who became Bey of Mani in 1685.

Biography
Gerakaris was born in the Mani Peninsula in the Peleponnese region of southern Greece in 1644, and he became a pirate in order to gain money to feed his family. He was formerly a rower in a Venetian galleon but came to command his own pirate fleet, and the Ottoman Empire's Grand Vizier Koprulu Fazil Ahmed Pasha made him an admiral in their navy and Bey of Mani.

In the winter of 1702, Gerakaris' Ottoman navy defeated a fleet of powerful Papal States vessels off Otranto Bey in a naval victory that won him two ships and sunk him the remaining two Papal vessels. He then withdrew from the Apulian coast to Piraeus to prevent any chance of his fleet running in with a larger and more powerful Venetian navy roaming the Ionian Sea.